Because these are insect cells, they do not require serum (animal products) to grow.

Sf9 cells are stock laboratory materials. Not some rare reagent. If we need a new flu vaccine RIGHT NOW for some reason, we dont have to wait to get a bunch of eggs. We have to wait a couple days to grow up a TON of Sf9 cells. In an emergency, this will be a faster way to generate influenza vaccines.

No eggs. You can have all the egg allergies you want and get this vaccine.

There were the three components in this vaccine that were in the ‘normal’ vaccine– 78% had a good response to component 1 (A-H1N1), 81% to component 2 (A-H3N2), and 52% to component 3 (B).

But because the vaccine makers guessed wrong the year of the study, what was in the vaccine and what was in nature were mismatched. Thus, they didnt get enough people infected with the vaccine strains to do good stats on them, specifically, but they did get a good number of people infected with the flu.

The vaccine was 54.4% protective against non-vaccine Influenza A (B had some stats issues, but it was 44.6% overall).

And all of this was made possible by… A GMO VIRUS!!

Influenza wants nothing to do with insect cells. You cant grow flu in bug cells.

So how do you grow influenza proteins in insect cells?

Pop the influenza hemagglutinin gene (or three!) into an insect virus, baculovirus. Baculovirus infects an insect cell and is just all ‘HERP DERPY I A MAKING MAH PROTEINS LALALALA!’ No idea its making a flu protein too!

But Vegans (and antivax ‘tards in general) are probably still going to kill you. They will invent something about GMO =evil = mansanto is the devil….. therefore a flu vaccine from a GMO virus is against their derply held religious beliefs.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t close the vegan loophole. The vaccine is still made using an animal product, namely insect cells. However, like so many things, veganism exists on a spectrum. I expect fewer vegans will refuse the insect cell line based vaccine.

Er, if vegans getting a vaccine would make them immune, and thus help us, then wouldn’t the only people that would be killed would be people who also didn’t get a vaccine? Sounds hypocritical. Just saying.

The good news should be that less people will kill *themselves*. If getting vaccines really helps, and I got one, then I’m in the clear, whether vegans get one or not.

[…] the virus coding elements. Abbie Smith who blogs at erv, mentioned a vaccine in development named Flublok. Cliff notes version is that influenza genes were inserted into an insect virus which was then […]